MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT BERNADINE DOHRN.

TODAY IS ANZAC DAY!

JERRY POURNELLE:

Democrats seem to be drifting toward the concept of prosecution of former office holders by criminalizing policy differences. That's a certain formula for civil war; perhaps not immediate, but inevitable. The absolute minimum requirement for democratic government is that the loser be willing to lose the election: that losing an election is not the loss of everything that matters. As soon as that assurance is gone, playing by the rules makes no sense at all.

Good point.

UPDATE: Mark Lardas emails:

The best example of what happens when you criminalize political opposition is the Roman Civil War.

Gauis Julius Caesar was a republican to the core. He believed in the Roman Republic, and its unwritten constitution. When his political opponents, the Optimates, made it clear that they were going to prosecute him and either exile or execute him, the moment Caesar set down his military command they made war inevitable. Especially since it was clear that they were not interested in following the law, except at their convenience.

Caesar was not given a choice between going to war and destroying the republic or preserving it by going quietly to his doom. He could see that the republic was doomed no matter what his choice was. He could either start a civil war or let Rome slide into a tyranny run by the Optimates. Given that choice, let the dice fly and hope you can put the pieces back together after you win. At least, you can die trying.

The Democrats remind me of the Optimates in many ways. William Clinton seems like a 21st century version of Pompey Magnus. That Bush has not played Caesar is a tribute to two things: George W.'s fundamental decency, and the fact that the United States is yet not in as bad a shape politically as the late Roman Republic.

The ability of Presidents to pardon themselves, and others in their administrations, before leaving office is more evidence of the Framers' wisdom. They were not unaware of classical politics.

AIRBRUSHING AT THE OBAMA WEBSITE.

UPDATE: Wrong crowd. "It is difficult to imagine any other candidate hanging out with such a diverse group of weirdoes and still be[ing] the front-runner for dogcatcher, let alone president."

ANOTHER UPDATE: Airbrushing is a habit.

TALKLEFT HAS MORE on Obama's "all-over-the-place" gun stance. Though there's one place he won't go, which is to offer an opinion on whether the DC gun ban is unconstitutional.

JOSH MARSHALL: What Did Hillary Know, And When Did She Know It?

UPDATE: What did Obama know about Jeremiah Wright and when did he know it?

CLINTON/OBAMA IN ONE SENTENCE: "It always amazes me how swiftly the narrative can change."

SO WHEN DOES THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT GET INVOLVED? We've already heard that pro-biofuels policies in Europe are a "crime against humanity" according to UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler.

Now Al Gore's acting nervous:

Mr. Senauer said climate change advocates, such as Vice President Gore, need to distance themselves from ethanol to avoid tarnishing the effort against global warming. “Crop-based biofuels are not part of the solution. They, in fact, add to the problem. Whether Al Gore has caught up with that, somebody ought to ask him,” the professor said. “There are lots of solutions, real solutions to climate change. We need to get to those.”

Mr. Gore was not available for an interview yesterday on the food crisis, according to his spokeswoman. A spokesman for Mr. Gore’s public campaign to address climate change, the Alliance for Climate Protection, declined to comment for this article.

First they came for John Yoo, but Al Gore said nothing because Al Gore was not a law professor. Then they came for Al Gore . . . .

Regardless, Al can't escape his past.

UPDATE: Calling for a posse!

ANOTHER UPDATE: Heightening the contradictions.

MORE: Reader Scott Cram sends this original limerick:

There once was a man named Gore,
who thought he had a climate change cure,
then things like grain and rice,
went far up in price,
now he's to blame for starving the poor!

Happily, this is one limerick in which the island of Nantucket does not appear.

STILL MORE ON CONGRESSIONAL BLUENOSE STUPIDITY, from The Mudville Gazette. So Maxim is too dirty for our troops?

I'M WATCHING A KUDLOW DISCUSSION OF ETHANOL and I think that most of the panelists -- except for Frank Gaffney -- are bashing ethanol rather uncritically. The problem with ethanol is a government-subsidy problem, and a trade-barrier problem. It's not a problem with ethanol itself. Make it out of something other than food, and lower the barrier to Brazilian ethanol imports, and it would help our current situation a lot. We're not doing that because of farm-subsidy politics. The problem is, basically, the Iowa caucuses and the pandering that results. But simply bashing all biofuels uncritically is dumb.

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